New Delhi: Cutting across party lines, a group of four opposition lawmakers has written to President Pranab Mukherjee accusing Rashtriya Sevak Sangh and the HRD Minister Smriti Irani of interfering with the affairs of IITs

New Delhi: Cutting across party lines, a group of four opposition lawmakers has written to President Pranab Mukherjee accusing Rashtriya Sevak Sangh and the HRD Minister Smriti Irani of interfering with the affairs of IITs and universities. The lawmakers have sought intervention of the President in the matter and requested him to step in to protect the educational institutions.

The letter signed by four Rajya Sabha MPs KC Tyagi, D Raja, Rajiv Shukla and DP Tripathi said, "The role of the HRD ministry and its minister is to lay down broad policy and to ensure adequate funding and not to interfere in or systematically erode the processes that govern the functioning of these institutions."

"We call upon the Honourable President to exercise his wisdom and prevent lasting damage to some great institutions such as the IITs and Universities of eminence," it added.

The letter cited various instances of what it called "RSS interference" in higher education. The letter gave instances of an IIT Director, a vice chancellor of a central university and a distinguished scientist being subjected to "humiliation and harassment". The HRD ministry has been in the eye of several controversies over the last eight months.

These include the rollback of the four-year undergraduate programme in Delhi University and the subsequent resignation of vice chancellor Dinesh Singh, the replacement of German with Sanskrit as the third language in Kendriya Vidyalayas and asking educational institutions to work on Christmas - bringing on opposition charges of saffronisation of education.

These include withdrawal of of the four-year undergraduate programme in Delhi University which followed the resignation of the vice chancellor Dinesh Singh. The replacement of German with Sanskrit as the third language in Kendriya Vidyalayas and asking educational institutions to work on Christmas stoked another controversy.

In December, IIT Delhi director RK Shevgaonkar quit two years before the completion of his term, although the government denied reports that he was made to quit.

Earlier, Chairman of IIT Bombay's board of governors, Anil Kakodar had skipped the meeting of the selection panel days after he had stirred a controversy by resigning from his post, unhappy over the selection process, though he later withdrew it.